


In This Sky I See You

by artisturtle



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Lena Saves Supergirl, Lena is a Superhero, Multi, Superhero!Lena, There's an OC Villain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-23 06:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30051012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisturtle/pseuds/artisturtle
Summary: At first it was just a terrible feeling in her chest. Something she had felt before, but just only once -- right before Krypton died.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen, Kara Danvers & Winn Schott Jr., Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 80





	1. A Gut Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, here's a new SuperCorp piece for all of you. I was so pissed at work, I just did this. See, I don't cope well with stress, so I try to make a new world inside my head when things got rocky. Anyway, enough of that. I think um, this is kind of non-canon compliant stuff, it's more of an alternate timeline and stuff. I just got loose with all this writing, so I hope it doesn't put you off. Just a disclaimer, I'm not exactly that fluent in English, so I might have overlooked a mistake or two -- or a bunch of them. I just had an app on my side to help me with my English, so there's that. Forgive me for whatever blunder I may have caused.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure as to when I will post an update, but I'll try to finish this as fast as I can. Maybe give it a week at the most to flesh out the next chapter? I've already mapped out the plot though, so I guess it's just a bouncy ride from here on out. Well, I hope you enjoy and yeah, I'll post some of the links for artworks if you are interested, let me know in the comments section.

Kara watches Lena across the table, her blue eyes trained at the particular dip of Lena's shoulders as it meets her neck. She sighs and decides she’d rather attend to the dirty dishes than _stare_ at the woman for eternity. Lena is talking with Kelly, Alex’s girlfriend. She’s seemingly in an amicable conversation with the other woman, even joking here and there and Kara finds it refreshing. She’s never seen Lena this unburdened in a long time, and she sort of misses her best friend. 

This had been the third time Lena had dinner with her and her friends at her flat -- the third time since they had both agreed to try patching things up between them. It had been such an ugly debacle filled with so much heartache and pain that she thought they’d never be able to go back to being friends again, but watching Lena under the warm yellow light of her chandelier tonight, she has more hope than usual.

Alex approaches her slowly, subtly throwing a glance at both Lena and Kelly before heading to the counter to pour herself some wine. “Stare a little more, why don’t you? You might burn holes into her back.”

Kara shakes her head as if trying to shake herself as well. “I’m not staring,” she mutters through gritted teeth but Alex only laughs at her, and somehow, it feels like they’re back to their teenage years again -- Alex almost always succeeding at riling her up despite being sisters through and through at the end of the day.

“Bite me. I totally caught you looking,” Alex grins as she pours herself a second helping of the beverage. Her once-playful expression turns somber and she turns to Kara. “How is it going with her? Are you two now in the clear?”

Kara gives her sister an assuring smile as she starts to load the dishes into the dishwasher. “We’re fine,” she tells her, closing the dishwasher and running it on. “If we aren’t on good terms, she wouldn’t have come here.”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know,” the redhead says. She contemplatively drinks from her glass. “Seems like it’s just so off for our girl here to forgive you that easy, I mean she’s a Luthor for goodness’ sakes, do you think it has to take more than just an apology to--”

Kara lets out a shaky exhale. “D-don’t do that...please. Don’t say something like that,” she looks pleadingly at her sister, and there’s a quaver in her voice that betrays the sob that tries to escape from her throat. “I just got Lena back and I can’t have you saying things like that.”

Alex sucks in a breath, knowing that she had crossed a line. She nods. “I just want you to be very careful around her. She's a Luthor, after all. And Luthors do not take betrayal so lightly. Why would Lena be any different?” she finally says as she walks back to the couch.

"I did not betray her. I only tried to protect her from my secret and from whatever that knowledge might bring her," Kara says in a hushed tone, but Alex doesn't answer. Instead, the older Danvers is just looking at her with a cold stare. “And that’s very unfair of you to judge her personality based on just her last name.”

Gripping the counter tightly, Kara takes calming breaths. Alex can be tactless sometimes, and on many occasions can even speak out of line, but this time, Alex seems convinced that Lena isn’t trying to patch things up and save their friendship -- _and it hurts her._

Kara watches Lena as she laughs along with something Kelly has said.

_Could Alex be right? That Lena hasn’t forgiven her mistakes? She is a Luthor, first and foremost. Perhaps, she might not be the friend Kara has known all these years. Lena had been keeping a distance from her as well, but it could just be because Lena is not prone to trusting anyone just yet. They had been through so much and maybe that had changed Lena._

“You alright?” a voice says at her side and it makes Kara jump.

The spoon she’s holding falls onto the floor with a loud clattering noise. She hadn’t noticed Lena making the trip from the living room to the kitchen. She gives an enthusiastic nod to Lena, a bit too enthusiastic to be even real. How had she not noticed her?

“You spaced out,” Lena says. An easy smile is plastered across her face. “You can tell me anything, right? Do you wanna go and take a walk outside?” she offers.

Leaving the two other girls in her apartment Kara leads Lena to the roof of Hammersmith Tower. When their elevator stopped at the top floor, they find out the door to the roof is locked for the night, so they end up standing on the fire escape’s stairwell ledge. The city bustles below them, cars passing by and the traffic in the distance bustling as the city plunges into the night, but here, it’s quiet and there’s a breeze. Hammersmith Tower is not as bright as the downtown places, and here and there, stars peek through the sky.

“The stars are beautiful,” Lena says. “I bet it’s even prettier up top.”

Kara smiles, watching the side of Lena’s face as the two of them lean over the railing. “It is. I didn’t know they locked the doors this early. It used to have a lock that didn’t work. Maybe the maintenance guy finally got around to fixing it.”

Lena laughs a little, and Kara takes note of how that laughter seemed to be so _burdened._ She stares at the way Lena flips her dark hair behind her shoulders as she looks down the street below, her eyes now veiled with grief that even Kara knows she couldn’t fathom. It confuses her, not even an hour ago, Lena looked so -- unhindered, but now, she looks like she bears the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Lately, she has so much to say to Lena -- and yet, there’s so little to say.

Lately, she just doesn’t know how to act around her. She wishes she’d see more of the old Lena she has known, but then again, she remembers that maybe the Lena now had seen so many things and that Lena had changed too -- and that Lena that had been her best friend had been gone too long already.

Her eyes carry them to the stars once again.

Kara scrunches her brow. It’s faint, like a phantom dream -- a distant memory. Lena looks at her with confused eyes, as though she’s wondering what Kara is thinking. A faint breeze rushes past them, tickling at the tips of her hair. A garbage truck passes in the alley below them, a slow beeping sound coming from it as its orange warning lights flash. 

Then, it goes quiet. The sounds of the city are muffled once more. The alley has grown dark.

“It’s quiet,” Kara says, her eyes trained to the night sky. Stars twinkle like dusty specks of silver on a black canvas.

“Well, thank you for stating it, Captain Obvious,” Lena smirks. Her dark, well-sculpted brows scrunch in confusion when Kara shakes her head violently.

"No," Kara disagrees. "That's...that's not what I meant. I don't know, it's just quiet," she looks up to the sky.

"Quiet? Can you elaborate?"

"The stars are quiet," Kara says as she worries her lower lip. She sighs, clearly frustrated at herself for being unable to translate her thoughts comprehensively. "I just think the sky is hushed. Like they're waiting for something to happen. Something dreadful."

"A potential danger to Earth?" Lena asks. 

“I think so, but I can’t be so sure,” Kara says softly to her once-best friend as she looks up to the night sky above her. It leaves a weird aftertaste in her tongue, talking about threats to Earth in the open like this. Back then, when she hadn’t found out that Kara is Supergirl, they all just talk about her projects and mundane stuff like a new burger serving from Big Bellys or potstickers.

"Must be a tough job for Supergirl to keep National City safe," Lena says ruefully, her eyes trained to the building on the other side of the street. A young man with his earphones on is drumming silently by his open window, lost in a world of his own.

Kara sighs. "It's not that. I'm just...I just can't figure out what's wrong, but I know something wrong."

"Must be just a feeling," Lena says. "Superheroes can be wrong, too."

Kara smiles, albeit her smile is forced. "You're right. Maybe it’s just a feeling," she says, agreeing to the dark-haired woman, and Lena smiles a little. “Maybe I’m just worrying too much about things. Maybe I’m just overthinking things. It’s just that I haven’t ever felt this feeling before. So, it’s highly...disorienting.”

“It’s weird too, with no overwhelming threat looming over the city,” Lena replies. “Maybe it’s just you being unused to the city being at peace.”

She looks up to the sky again. The stars blink at her like they know something else. She keeps quiet though, as quiet as the stars can get. She hears Lena shuffle closer to her, and she feels Lena’s warm hand in hers. They’re still walking on eggshells around each other, and the physical touch, though not unwelcome, sends a jolt through Kara’s system.

“It’s just a feeling,” Lena tells her again, and she nods. 

She wonders if it’s this easy to keep things to one person. Perhaps, it is true then, that the first lie is always going to be the most difficult -- the others just come easier. She feels Lena squeezing her hand tight as an ugly thought surfaces in her mind.

**_I’ve felt this feeling before. In Krypton, before my planet died._ **

Lena pours herself her second glass of brandy for the night. Her dinner at Kara’s had gone well, and it had seemed that Kara had started to trust her again. She stares into the glass, peering into the amber liquid. She remembers the other Danvers from dinner and she frowns. 

She had overheard the older Danvers warning and berating Kara earlier while she’s conversing with Kelly, and she doesn’t want to make a fuss about it, but she had to be pragmatic if she wants to achieve what she wants. Alex seems to cotton on her hidden intentions.

_She's a Luthor, after all. And Luthors do not take betrayal so lightly. Why would Lena be any different?_

She swallows down the bitter drink. She winces as the alcohol burns in her throat the way those words burn in her mind. Alex Danvers could prove to be a nuisance -- one that she’ll have to take care of sometime soon enough if she wants her plans to work.

A bitter laugh escapes her throat. “If they’re looking for a Luthor, then they will have a Luthor,” she hisses, and she downs the alcohol. It leaves a burn on her throat, but it’s not enough to match the burn in her heart.

She chances to look up at the sky. The moon hangs low, narrow, and gibbous, a sliver of silver against the midnight blue of the night sky. Kara had been so worried about something happening, but it seems peaceful.

Nevertheless, whatever agitated the Kryptonian had given her the opening to get closer to Kara. It won’t be long now until she’d finally exact revenge and make Kara feel the full extent of pain she had caused. It won’t be long now.

She pours herself her third glass.

The curtain flutters against an odd breeze. She’s not sure, maybe she has the auditory acuity, or perhaps it’s a sixth sense or something else, but she knows Kara’s on her balcony. She doesn’t turn, though. She waits for Kara to step inside her room.

“Lena?” Kara calls, her voice nervous and small -- unsure whether she had stepped over any boundaries that had oddly grown between them since the rift of Kara’s secret tore them apart. “Are you here?”

Lena clears her throat. “In here,” she replies, and she could hear Kara exhale a long, loud sigh. “Is there anything you ever needed?”

She could feel Kara step closer to where she’s standing. “Nothing, Lena. I...I just couldn’t sleep and I thought I’d check in on you. Seems like I’m not the only one being kept up in this city, though.”

Lena fights hard not to roll her eyes. _How very sweet of her._

“I couldn’t sleep yet,” Lena tells her, making sure her voice is even and it doesn’t hold any hint of distaste. “You still couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding since dinner?”

Kara sighs again as she stands next to Lena by the counter. “To be honest? My anxiety is just growing and growing. I just feel like some trouble is brewing somewhere. I’ve flown through National City a couple of times tonight, but nothing feels off. Maybe a robbery or two down the alleyways, but nothing major.”

“Do you think you should go around the world just to check?” Lena quips. She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but it came unbidden. She fights the urge to roll her eyes at herself, and she reminds herself it’s just the old habits kicking in.

Kara seems to seriously consider it anyway. “Maybe I should.”

“You can’t be serious, Kara. I was just kidding.”

“I know,” Kara says. “I just feel like I’m missing something. Anyway, I think I should head out. You better get some sleep as well. It’s late in the night.”

Lena smiles at Kara. “Maybe later. I’m assuming you won’t use the front door?” she had added the subtle shade in her sentence, but Kara is too preoccupied at the slight change of her tone to even comment about it.

She watches as Kara takes to the skies.

“Any time now,” she whispers through her drink. She’s too pleased with herself. If it was another life, she would’ve gotten a scene-stealer award for acting. All the Hollywood girls could suck at how good she’s being at pretending.

It’s been three days and the stars are still hushed. 

That morning, Kara watches the sky as the sun rises. Even the big yellow star is even hushed. She squints, trying to see through the harsh beam of light. It’s as though there’s a crackling tension in the air -- like a thread pulled so tight.

_Kara worries what happens should the thread unravel._

She turns her eyes back to the city. Jumping off the roof, she starts flying towards the heart of the city. The traffic below her starts slow, but as she goes closer to where the city center is, it starts building up. The rush hour is upon them.

She finally reaches the familiar building that looks just like the thousands that dot within National City’s downtown area. There’s not a lot of employees lounging around yet, and those who are on duty are still those from the night shift. However, Kara already knows Alex is already in the building even in the early hours.

“You didn’t tell me you’d be dropping by,” Alex grumbles as she walks into the bullpen office designated for senior agents. “You could’ve at least bought me coffee.”

Kara snorts. “Please, your office literally smells like coffee. You have a tower of coffee maker in here, what’s the point of having it here if you only want to buy from outside?” she motions to the coffee maker in the corner.

Alex laughs, but her face turns pensive as she carefully watches Kara’s features, as if she’s trying to gauge why Kara’s in the DEO headquarters. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy times being visited by my sister dearest, but why are you here? Is everything okay?”

“I need you to look at something,” Kara finally says.

“What is it?”

Kara leans out, looking at the window and to the sky above them. There’s nothing there save for a few clouds dotting the otherwise blue skyline. “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling, like something big is happening out there. I just don’t know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

Alex’s face goes stony. “Do you think it’s an alien?”

Sighing, Kara pulls her hair behind her ears. “I’m not so sure about it, but I want to know. Maybe if the DEO can make a sweep at our extra-orbital areas and maybe at the space around the planet, maybe we’d find out.”

“So you’re just here because you have a hunch something might happen?” Alex says.

“Basically? Yes. I have no idea what it is, and I’ve never been good with gut feelings, but this is just so strong to ignore and people...people are just saying this is just a feeling and it might not be even happeni--,” Kara explains, her hands flying off everywhere until Alex grips her arms and tells her to calm down.

“Listen,” Alex says forcefully as she could. “Listen to me, I’m not saying what you’re saying is not true, okay? I’m not invalidating your worries, but for me to properly forward and initiate investigating procedures, I need more than just your “hunch” to get it going,” Alex says. “We’re just shooting shots in the dark here if this is the case. Do you understand?”

Kara blinks. _Alex is right_.

If there’s nothing that could prove that her hunch and her intuitions are true, that danger is truly around the corner, so the DEO has no substantial reason to conduct an investigation. Until then, she has to find a way to validate _her hunch_.

“You’re...you’re right,” she breathes out finally, and Alex lets her shoulders go. She leans on Alex’s table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push this towards your end, you see. I was just worried and I don’t know, I’m just worried.”

A small smile creeps up to Alex’s face. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? It’s been months and there’s no major threat looming above us. It’s kind of disorienting, really. You’re not the only one feeling that, Kara. Everyone in DEO feels it. Talk to Henshaw and he’d go on and on saying it’s like we are in a lull. We ought to feel thankful about it, but it puts everyone on edge.”

Kara looks up at her sister. “I’m sorry.”

Alex, for her part, just leans next to Kara. “It’s alright. Don’t worry too much about it, okay? I’m sure things will be fine. I’ll ask for Henshaw and try to keep as many eyes as I can spare for your request. Does that sound okay to you?”

Kara could only nod.

 _Maybe everything is just a fluke and she’s just overthinking._ **_Maybe Earth is safe_ ** _._

She looks up when she hears heels loudly clicking on the floor. Her assistant is taking great strides towards her office, her hair wildly bouncing on her head. Putting her phone down, she quirks a brow at her assistant.

“Jess, you seem flustered,” she says by way of greeting.

“You canceled your one-thirty meeting?” Jess asks. “Mr. Yikuma called me just now demanding why you would cancel a meeting for negotiations, one that would open up opportunities for L-Corp in East Asia, and you cancel it half an hour before it happens?”

“I have already personally explained to him that something important came up,” Lena says to Jess as she picks up her phone which just beeped, indicating that there’s a text message. “If that’s all you needed to tell me you can go now.”

Jess nods and obediently turns on her heel.

“And Jess,” Lena calls her just as she’s about to step out of the Luthor heiress’s office.

“Yes, Miss Luthor?”

Lena leans back on her chair. “When Kara Danvers arrives at reception, show her directly to my private study. She said she'd swing by and bring me lunch.”

“Lena, are you here?” Lena hears her before she sees Kara. The lights are low and the blinds are drawn. She watches as Kara carefully steps across the bare room, with only a few pieces of furniture scattered about. The blonde's heels clicked against the marble floor.

The Luthor heiress’s office is divided into two -- the first room is bigger, with sparse couches where she can entertain guests and business partners. The second portion, her private study, is partitioned from the other room, an alcove where she can entertain her guests in a more secluded setting _._

“I'm here,” Lena calls back to her from the alcove of her private study. “Did Jess show you up?”

Kara steps into the alcove, gingerly setting down the three paper bags on the low table at the end of the couch. “Yeah, she did. She had to leave quickly because someone’s calling her about something. I didn’t quite catch on it.”

"This is sweet of you,” Lena raises a brow, a playful smile tugging on the corners of her mouth as she takes in the familiar scent of food emanating from one of the paper bags. “Is this all for me? This seems a bit too much food for one person alone.”

Kara blushes. “Yeah, see that’s the thing. I kind of...want to have lunch with you.”

“Oh,” Lena states, stumped. Of course, Kara would naturally want to do that. So, she smiles and gives Kara a reassuring smile. “Okay. Sure, but I have to clear up my table first because I can’t afford to have potsticker sauce all over this contract I just signed today,” she says with a quip.

Kara bursts out laughing. "We can eat here on the low table."

They’re halfway through their food when Kara decides it’s time to ask Lena for help. So, she puts her chopsticks and folds her hands over her lap. “Lena, there's something I'd like to...ask,” she says hesitantly. “There’s something I want to ask of you. I hope it’s not too much.”

“What is it?”

She inhales as she looks at Lena. She slowly lets it out of her nose. “I need to use one of L-Corp’s sub-orbital surveillance satellites,” she says.

“What for, Kara?” Lena asks too quickly. Before Kara could even answer, a look of understanding passed across her facial features. “It’s what you said a few days ago, isn’t it? The whole thing about stars being quiet.”

Kara shrugs. “It is. I don’t know, I feel like I’ve not been looking enough. Or that I’ve been looking in the wrong direction that’s why I’m not seeing anything. I still have the foreboding feeling, Lena. And it’s not going away.”

“Have you asked DEO to look into this?”

“I have,” Kara answers. “But they’re not going to launch a full-scale investigation let alone a monitoring and surveillance team to look into it because they need substantial evidence to launch such operations.”

Lena’s brow knit in pensive thought. “Even Alex refused?”

“Well, Alex did not outright refuse, but she promised to talk to her director and hope they listen,” Kara tells her as she subtly adjusts her. “She just said she’d look into it. Translated to: I’m not sure if I can help you there, but I'll try and I’d rather you don’t bank on it.”

“Well, but that's terrible. Understandable, yes. It's a wild goose chase, but even then,” Lena says simply. “I’ll let you use some of the surveillance satellites for whatever you’re looking for. Although you have to understand these surveillance satellites are only comparable to DEO, if not better. If you want to look at the stars, there’s NASA.”

“You’re sure about that? You’d let me use your satellites so that I can patrol around?”

“Come on, Kara. You brought me lunch,” she jokes. “Besides, we’re trying to rebuild this friendship and I’m here to support you.”

Kara doesn’t answer. Behind her lead-tinted eyeglasses, Kara could feel the hot tears forming, and she unabashedly let them flow. Lena leans forward, perturbed at the sight of her friend crying, but she doesn’t think twice when she pulls Kara into a hug.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kara sobs, finally allowing herself to break down into Lena’s arms. “I’m so sorry for keeping everything from you. I only wanted to protect you. I’m sorry I betrayed your trust, I’m sorry I hurt you...”

Lena looks at Kara. Deep down, she could feel it. She could feel her walls slowly crumbling down, being chipped away piece by piece. She swallows the bitter bile of resentment as she reminds herself that she couldn’t forgive betrayal. But here, even in her own body, her eyes betray her too as she could feel the hot tears pooling at the sides of her eyes.

“It’s alright,” she says, a guttural sob tearing through her throat as she gathers Kara in her arms. She loathes to admit it, but she feels lighter when she’s in the proximity of the Kryptonian. She feels something warm bubble against her chest -- shame, anguish, regret. 

Gritting her teeth, she tries to tamp it down and she mentally reminds herself to get a grip of herself. 

“Kara," she sighs, trying to search through deep blue eyes. "I’m sorry I hurt you, too."

She still needs another person to talk to. So Kara grabs a pizza box at Wally’s, a pack of beer, and starts heading down Fifth Street and Murray. She walks into an apartment complex with red doors and finds the one written with 8C in bold letters. She turns to knock loudly.

When the door opens, Winn is grinning at her.

“Kara! What’s up?” he asks.

“I need your help,” she says as she walks into Winn’s apartment, breaking the pretense that she’s here for pizza and some beer. “I’m pretty sure word’s out at the DEO that I’ve asked Alex to do a sweep at the atmosphere, so I’m gonna cut right to the chase.”

“Wait,” Winn says as he eagerly tears through the pizza and stuffs his mouth with a humongous bite. “Is this the one you asked Alex for? About the stars and stuff being quiet?” he asks, bits and pieces of food flying from his mouth. 

“Yes,” Kara says, completely ignoring the fact that Winn just projected a pepperoni bit too close for her comfort. “And I know that without substantial evidence of it being a potential threat, DEO won’t really look at it, so I need you to do something for me.”

Winn swallows the last bit of his pizza slice. He washes it down with a swig of the beer Kara had brought. “Eh, what do you need me for?”

Kara takes a deep breath. “You hacked us into NCPD before,” she says tentatively and the mention of it makes Winn sit still. “Now I need you to hack into something bigger. I need you to hack into NASA.”

“NASA?” Winn echoes. “That’s...that’s a lot.”

“I know. I’ve asked for Lena’s help with surveillance cameras and all that, and I know we might be committing a felony after this, but Winn, I need your help,” she implores him. “I need eyes in the sky where I can see things before they’re coming.”

Kara peers through the screen. There isn’t much there, just static and occasional blips of light. Winn navigates through the black-and-white imagery on the computer, his trained eyes and trained hands moving seamlessly through the controls.

“What exactly are you looking at?” Winn asks and he stuffs himself with Cheetos, brows scrunched as he stares at the screen, looking for something that would alert them to danger. “I mean, this is what NASA looks at all day, I’m not gonna survive a week of boredom. Who wants to look at scratchy monochrome photos?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Kara pensively says, choosing to ignore Winn’s offhand comment. “Maybe I should go and fly over the planet, just to be sure, right?” she says, just as Winn’s computer crashes again and displays a blank, blue screen for a few seconds before turning off.

“Oh come on!” Winn says in annoyance, slamming his hand on the desk. “Not again.”

“Oh gosh, what’s happened?” Kara mutters worriedly, for Winn is looking pissed as he tries to turn his laptop on again.

“My laptop’s an i5 but it needs more than that sort of processor to handle big information coming from NASA,” Winn states. “I’ve been milking my processors dry just to get that information and now my laptop is fried.”

“So we need a new computer processor?”

Winn shakes his head. “No, not just **_any other computer processor_ ** ,” he tells her. “We need a **superprocessor.** And there’s only one place other than NASA where we can find a superprocessor with that processing power, and it’s somewhere I don’t really want to go into."

_They both know what Winn is talking about, and Kara’s not about to risk going to the DEO and find out they’re taking matters into their own hands._

“We can’t go to DEO and hack NASA through their computers,” Kara says at Winn. "We'll...we'll get found out."

"I'll get found out," Winn sullenly corrects her. “So we need someplace else. And good luck finding that place. Far as I know, only DEO and NASA have computers like this. Maybe the Interpol and FBI but I don’t ever want to go there for the same reason I don’t want to go to the DEO.”

Kara turns to the window, thinking of her options. It’s either they hack into NASA’s facility itself, or into DEO. Chancing to look up to the sky, she busies herself by watching the city skyline. She’s partly jealous that Winn gets the view -- her apartment is literally facing a brick wall.

She never knew Winn had a view of the imposing, tall structure of the L-Corp building and that’s when the idea struck her. She turns to Winn, grinning at him as if she had won the lottery.

“I know a place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for getting here, and thank you all for reading! Follow me at my Twitter @artisturtle if you want to discuss how stuff goes and wanna be my friend! Also, I can help out anyone who wants to write (not much of a writer, but I try to help). Anyway, if you liked this chapter, leave me a kudos and comment to let me know what you think of it. Thanks!


	2. New Arrivals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my friends, here's an update for this piece. I hope you like it, despite it being shorter than the other chapter. Enjoy! Don't forget to leave a comment and how this made you feel.

"So let me get this straight," Lena repeats as leans back in her office chair. Under the dimmed light of the room, the shadows dance on her face as she gives Winn and Kara an amused smile. "You want to use one of my supercomputers to hack into NASA?"

Winn shakes his head. "No, no, we already **_hacked into_ ** NASA," he says. "We just need to get into their information grid and process this with your computer."

"So you're hacking into NASA using my supercomputer," Lena clears her throat, standing up and rounding her desk so she's now standing in front of Winn and Kara.

Winn shakes his head. "No, I didn't mea--"

Kara sighs, and she steps in between Winn and Lena. It didn’t matter to them, whether they use the computer to hack into NASA or not. "Okay, that's enough," she glares at Winn and effectively shuts him up. "Yes, we will be using your computer to hack into NASA, Lena."

The smile on Lena's face doesn't falter. "Well, that should be fun," she finally says after some time of consideration.

Kara frowns. "Excuse me, what?" she mutters. "I'm pretty sure you're the type of person who'll remind us we're committing a felony, but you tell me it's going to be...fun?

Lena sighs as she makes for the door and motions for them to follow. "Well, we're expecting some felony charges anyway, why not have fun while we're at it?" she mutters as she leads both Winn and Kara into another part of the building, to her lab where she does most of her experiments.

When Lena turns the lights on to her laboratory, she’s amused to see her visitor’s mouths blatantly hanging open at the sight of rows and rows of computers lined up on one side of the room. A large worktable filled with bits and ends of what looks like a chest plate occupies most of the space inside the room, but there’s a counter with a sink at the back with rows and rows of glass jars and glass tubes. On the other side of the room is a locked door that leads to another room of the laboratory.

If Kara had used her x-ray vision, she would have gotten a peek of a set of weaponry and a set of armored suit that looks like they’re picked straight out of a sci-fi movie -- all of them encased in locked glass pods.

“Here,” Lena says as she presses several buttons and the computers spring to life. Winn seats himself on a swivel chair while Kara busies herself with watching Winn as he tries to get into NASA’s mainframe.

“Give me five minutes,” he tells them, and his hands fly over the keyboard.

It takes him a bit more than five minutes.

“You said five minutes, Schott,” Lena grumbles as Winn pulls up a folder labeled with the title “DeepSpaceIV-MICAS-CCD” and opens it. He pulls out a file called DSIV-MICAS-CCDN1.psd and opens it. There’s nothing but empty images blotted with green bits of color. Winn’s brow scrunches in confusion.

“What is wrong?” he asks, more to himself than to the others.

“Maybe it’s not written on the same coding language as my processor is designed with,” Lena supplies and Winn nods in agreement. He punches some more keys on the keyboard before finally being able to show different photographs filled with a blue scribbly line all over its length. There are several dots on an arcing line.

“What’s that?” Kara asks, squinting hard at the computer screen. Winn shakes his head.

“It’ looks like a line graph of some sort,” Lena says as she traces the line with a well-manicured fingertip across the screen. “AU means astronomical units. They’re measuring the distance of some sort of celestial body from Earth. I don’t know, it looks like this is surveillance for deep space satellites.”

“Maybe I should go and fly over the planet, just to be sure, right?”

Lena sighs as she turns to Kara. “There’s not much we can do while we’re stuck here and not knowing what we’re looking at. I think it’d be the best thing to do. It’s better than sitting in the dark anyway,” she finally says as she steps away from Winn and the computer. “But before you go, I’d like you to have something. A small gift, you could say. Here,” she says before retrieving a small plastic case from her pocket.

“You gave me that signal watch before, I’m giving you something back. You can communicate directly to me when you do that. I mean, I know you have superhearing and all, but I kind of want to see if it works and I can hear you speak through the line as well,” Lena says as she puts the small device on Kara’s suit-clad palm. “Besides, I was thinking of selling these little products that are called CommLinks. They should be durable and the flight outside the planet might be the test it needs to see how far they can go.”

“Oh,” Kara says, perusing the small device in her palm. She opens the case and it reveals a small, plastic earbud. She puts it inside her ear and she gives Lena a toothy grin. “Did I do it right?” to which Lena just smiles and nods.

“Alright, I’m heading out.”

“And Kara,” Lena calls just as Kara steps out of the laboratory. “Please take care.”

Kara nods, a soft “thank you” falling from her lips before she walks away.

The flight upwards isn’t easy. Having to escape Earth’s gravitational influence has always been taxing. It’s something she could do, but it’s been taxing, even for a Kryptonian like her. As she reaches sub-orbital space, she feels the weightlessness influencing her body. She inhales. A human body could die here in seconds, but not the Kryptonian mettle. Her kind had always been built strong and enduring.

She stares at the sun. It’s still yellow and nothing seems to be wrong with it. She checks the moon out, it’s still as desolate as ever. She had attached the communication device in her ear, and there’s a faint crackle in the background.

“Hello? Hello, Kara? Are you there? Is it working?” Lena’s voice, so full of uncertainty mixed with hope, fills in the otherwise silence of sub-orbital space.

“Yes! It works!” something pings in the device, and she hears Lena yelp. Instantaneously, Kara could feel the dread creep up to her. “Lena? Lena is everything okay?”

Silence.

“Lena? Lena, can you hear me?”

Static.

“Lena--”

“Yes, I’m fine, Kara! I’m fine. Your yelling just jumped me and I dropped the control console, that’s all. I’m fine. The CommLink is working, isn’t it?” Lena asks, her voice punctuated by the staccato of the static.

“Yes,” Kara replies. “It sends a bit of static though. I think it has something to do with the ionosphere sending back feedback mechanisms to the ground, but other than that I can hear you just fine,” she tells Lena.

“Good, that’s great to know,” Lena sighs on the other line. “Have you found what you're looking for yet?”

“Not exactly. Nothing seems amiss anyway,” Kara says as she hovers above a broken part of a satellite. “I sure do think all this space garbage is becoming a problem though. There’s so much trash in here.”

“In sub-orbital space?” Lena clarifies.

“Yup. Space debris coming from satellites and spaceships. You know they don’t fall back to Earth,” Kara tells her. “Anyway, I’ll try to take a look around and see what I find,” she continues as she floats from one place to another.

“Alright. Let me know if I could be of help,” Lena tells her.

Kara keeps hovering around, using the debris to change her directions. Here, the sun shines much brighter, and she had to keep her back towards the sun because even her Kryptonian physiology is no match for a star. Using her visual capacities, she tries to be as thorough as possible, looking out for every nook and cranny of the immediate surroundings.

She almost misses it the first time, it’s just a flash that catches her eyes.

At first, she thinks it’s just a trick in the eye, just a mirage and she’s imagining the faint blip in the distance. Perhaps it’s just a start dying off. She squints her eyes as she tries to maximize her vision. The blip shines faintly, stays for a few seconds, before disappearing.

The blip doesn’t appear back.

“Lena, are you there?” she speaks into the void. Kara’s not sure what the blip is, and even Supergirl’s eyes are no match for the distance. She needs better eyes to see. She hears Lena answer on the opposite line, followed by a crackle of static. “Lena, can you check this out? You got my location, right?”

“Yeah, I got you,” Lena says, punctuated by another bout of static. “What are we looking at?”

Kara tries to see through the dark. The blip hasn’t appeared yet. “I don’t know, but can you and Winn keep surveillance on this direction? There’s a blip that’s appeared and just disappeared and I don’t know what that is.”

“I’ll run computer programs to figure this out if that ever helps. But these surveillance satellites are not meant to study stars if anything,” Lena’s voice filters through the device. “Are you not going back to earth yet?”

Kara stares into the distance. It’s the blip that ticks her. “I think I’m going in.”

It’s not until three days later, during the night when Lena calls her. It’s actually in the early hours of the morning and when she answers the phone, all she could hear is Lena’s heavy breathing on the other side of the line and a single sentence from Lena before she’s out of the door.

“We need to talk.”

She flies straight to Lena’s bedroom, landing unceremoniously on the balcony. She rushes to the lower levels of Lena’s home, where the laboratory is located. Her booted feet scuttle over the cold concrete floor, but all she thinks about is Lena.

She skids as she enters the room. Lena is sitting in front of a row of computer screens, the blue light from the devices bathing the dark-haired girl in an eerie, blue glow. Lena momentarily looks up, and she sighs in relief when she sees Kara.

“Kara,” she says, rushing to meet the girl in the Supergirl-suit in a half-body hug. “I’m glad you came. This is important,” she says as she rushes back to the computers. “Remember that I said the satellites weren’t programmed to process the information on stellar bodies like stars?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Kara says.

Lena punches a few codes in the computer, pulling out a composite image of the night sky. There’s nothing so special about it but she figures out that Lena isn’t probably done yet, so Kara tries not to say anything.

“So, when you and Winn left here a few nights back, I tried to re-program it and I developed a code to process information such as red-shifting, calculate approximate distance and energy based on the lumens a celestial body is emitting and its approximate size, it’s spectroscopy and the likes,” Lena tells her. “And I’ve run it on that blip you were telling me about. The one we found close to Sagittarius A* sector.”

“Did you find anything?” Kara asks.

Lena pulls up another image. This time, it is a composite graphic interface that is played on a loop. The blip appears and reappears on the picture, quite a few times. “There it is,” Lena points to the blip. “Here’s Jupiter and Saturn,” she points to two other points in the sky that are on opposite sides of the blip.

“What is it? Have you figured out what it is?”

Now, Lena turns to face her. “I guess that it’s a comet. It could be some material, a form of debris, from outside the solar system. But that could be anything. I could be wrong,” she says. She inhales deeply and for some reason, it makes Kara brace for something, as if something is about to happen and it’s something terrible.

“And Kara, there’s something else you need to know.”

“What is it?”

“It’s headed for Earth.”

“What do you mean it’s headed for Earth?” Kara asks. She knows exactly what Lena means, she’s not stupid. She just hopes she’s wrong. 

“I calculated the possibilities for the comet and looked into every circumstance and even adjusted the offsets of the projected course. Its trajectory crosses Earth’s orbit. I’m not so sure if it’ll pass that close to Earth but...” Lena shakes her head as she turns to face both Winn and Kara. “It’s moving really fast. The blip is now reappearing every three to four hours or so, and the closer it gets, the shorter its intervals will be. And with that much speed and power, it might do a great deal of damage.”

“It might miss Earth,” Kara says, eyes still peering at the screen.

“It might,” Lena agrees. “But its force field can stretch on for miles and it’ll still have enough energy to rip out the entire planet.”

“So I should stop it,” Kara mumbles, her eyes scanning the dark sky beyond Lena’s window. She can’t see the blip from where she’s standing, but she knows it’s out there. “I need to stop it from reaching Earth.”

“Kara,” for a while, Lena hesitates. Her eyes mist over, as though she’s saying something she doesn’t want to say. “With the speed and amount of energy this blip has, I don’t think you’d be able to stop it.”

“I’ll still try,” Kara says as she steps out into the pale morning light. Her cape swishes at the passing wind.

“Kara,” Lena calls, the tears are falling openly from her eyes. They’re haunted, it’s something both of them could not shake off. Lena looks like she wants to be anywhere but here. “If you try to stop it from hitting Earth, it’s probably impossible, but if the comet is big enough, its force might be strong enough to kill you.”

Kara lets out an exhale. She’s never seen that distressed look on Lena’s face before. Lena had been so sure of things, so used to the fact that what she wanted she got them. Now, Lena’s eyes are begging her to say something. She looks helpless and small.

She squares her shoulders and she tries to sport a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Lena. I’m Supergirl, remember? I can go and take out that rock.”

“Kara,” Lena starts to say something, but she seems to decide against it. Instead, she takes what little space there is between her and Kara’s body and she pulls her into a squeezing hug.

Kara nods, wordlessly squeezing Lena back. "I have to go. I'll talk to you via the CommLink."

Lena watches as Kara shoots up to the sky, her eyes cloudy with confusion. Once she no longer sees Kara’s red cape flurrying across the early morning sky, she steps back into the haven of her laboratory and locks the glass doors. As she does, Lena chances to see her reflection through the glass.

“Why?” she whispers to no one in particular. The question hangs heavy in the air. 

She knows why, she refuses to acknowledge **_why_ ** _._ She had always wanted to exact revenge on Kara, she had always wanted to see her suffer -- but she had hesitated to send her out to something that could potentially **_kill her._ **

A sole tear runs across her cheek as she stares at her reflection.

_If she had wanted her to die, why is she feeling empty the moment Kara took to the skies?_

Sighing, she turns the CommLink on, and she waits for the faint crackle of static as it grows in volume. She grips the control console tightly, her knuckles turning white. She waits for the telltale sign of Kara’s breathing on the other side of the line.

Across town, Alex pours herself her first cup of coffee for the day. She couldn’t function without it. Kelly had jokingly said, more than on one occasion that Alex had married coffee before anything else.

She couldn’t disagree with that, however.

She’s not five minutes into taking her seat when the unmistakable blaring of an alarm goes off. Cursing underneath her breath, she turns to look at Reiff, one of her fellow senior DEO agents. “What’s going on, Reiff? Why are the alarms blaring so goddamn early in the morning?”

“Supergirl’s gone sub-orbital,” Reiff’s voice echoes through the otherwise quiet room.

"For what?" Alex asks. In the distance, she could hear heavy footfalls from booted feet thundering through the hallway. Hank Henshaw appears by the door, his hulking form enough to send an ugly lump stuck in Alex’s throat.

"No one knows. She's heading outward and into space and she's not stopping," Hank pauses as he eyes Alex with confusion as if trying to assess the situation at hand. "In fact, it looks like she's going orbital and into deep space as fast as she can."

Alex stands from her desk, already heading to the command center two levels below, where she knows the DEO will be watching Supergirl’s every move now that she had done something **did not expect her to do**. 

"Why would she go orbital hell for?!" Alex thunders.

"We're not sure why she had gone into space," Hank tells her as she steps outside the elevator. All around her, computers are beeping, machines are whirring, and in numerous screens, blinking lights indicate various points in space, and in one of them, there's a faint blinking red dot.

"That's her," Hank points to the red dot that whizzes past Mars. Another DEO agent walks in, reporting that before Supergirl going orbital, she had been seen stepping out of Lena Luthor’s building early in the morning. She also looks at the piece of clipboard she’s holding, hesitating as if she doesn’t want to say something more.

“Out with it, Agent Hill!” Hank bellows and the officer **almost jumps.**

“Uh...” he mutters. “There’s susceptible cyber-activity from a computer that has Lena Luthor’s IP address,” he says. “NASA just called us a few minutes ago, reporting that Lena Luthor’s computer had illegally accessed sensitive information.”

Alex scrunches her brows. She leans on one of the consoles, her heart beating loudly against her chest. She grits her teeth at the thought of her adoptive sister flying through space.

"What the hell are you up to, Kara?" she murmurs. Kara goes past Jupiter. She's evidently slowing down. 

“Agent Danvers!”

Swallowing hard, Alex turns to Hank, giving him her full attention. “Yes?”

"Get me a car," he barks out, and Alex winces. Hank turns to Alex. “And get a goddamn hold of Lena Luthor!”

The shrill sound of the intruder alarm ringing makes her skin jump. Cursing under her breath, she punches a button on the console to stop it from ringing so loud. In one of the computers, she still watches the blinking light that represents Kara in the vastness of space.

Kara is yet to call.

On another screen, Lena watches as Alex makes her way to the front door. A small sigh escapes her lips as she tiredly gets out of her chair. _Great, the DEO has already cottoned on us._

She pushes the intercom to call for her assistant. Once Eve, her newly-hired research assistant, picks it up, she states her order. “Eve, there are people at the door. Show them in.”

Eve calls back not a minute later. Her voice sounds delicate and innocent, but there is a slight tremble hidden underneath. “Agent Danvers of the DEO is asking for you, Miss Luthor. Shall I bring her into the laboratory or will you be here to meet them up?”

Lena sighs. “Alright. Lead Agent Danvers into my lab. Let the others wait out in the foyer.”

"What do I owe the pleasure of your visit so early in the morning, Agent Danvers?"

"Did you know Kara's gone to space?" Alex asks harshly, her lips upturned into a frown. "She's sending everyone into a crazy fit by going off like that."

"Well, never bothers with the pleasantries, I see," Lena says as she clicks her tongue. "I bet she's out to save the world again," she tells Alex, a hint of disdain and annoyance weaving through her voice.

"Well, you should know," Alex counters. "She was seen entering your building mere hours ago."

"It doesn't automatically mean I know what she's up to."

Alex growls. "Bullshit. I'm bringing you in."

"You cannot bring me in for questioning," Lena counters. "I know my rights."

"You can kiss your fucking rights goodbye," Alex says. "We will bring you in for questioning."

"Under what grounds? Shouldn’t I at least have the right to know? I’m pretty sure the DEO has a protocol somewhere, should I be taken without reading my accusations. I’m pretty sure my lawyers will have a field day should that happen," Lena says, and it's not lost on the both of them that it is a loaded threat.

"Obstruction of justice," Alex mutters. Then, her tone changes. "Look Lena, I don't want this to be harder than it already is. Kara is my sister. I need to know what she's up to."

Lena swallows. _This is it._

"She's gone to save Earth, again. I told you this before."

"What do you mean?" Alex sounds confused. "What do you mean by that?"

Lena rolls her eyes, even though Alex could not see them. "It's exactly what I said, genius. Kara's gone to save the Earth from a potential comet collision."

"A what?"

"Must I always repeat what I say?" Lena hisses. “A comet collision. She’s gone out of orbit to stop a comet from colliding with Earth.”

Alex’s eyes travel to the computers sitting on the tables. Beeping lights in various colors display different sections of the sky. Satellite footages glare from the screen. Alex watches as a familiar sight catches her eye -- a set of blipping dots with labels attached to them. 

Supergirl has flown past Neptune.

“What is Kara planning to do?” she asks no one in particular. Lena just shrugs helplessly. Just as she’s about to say something else, the air is filled with crackling static, and Lena immediately dives to the console so she could adjust the volume and frequency.

“Le--Lena,” Kara’s voice flutters through the air. “Lena, are you there?”

With shaking hands, Lena grabs the console. “Yes, it’s me, Kara. I am here. You’ve just gone past Neptune, how is it? Is everything alright?”

There’s a faint crackle, punctuated by heavy breathing. Lena’s heart leaps into her chest when she hears Kara’s voice once again.

“Lena,” Kara says and there’s a quiver in her voice. 

Something cold runs through Lena’s veins. Lena’s sure that Alex could feel the dread as well because the older Danvers have squared her shoulders and her jaw is stony and set. They wait in dread because whatever it is that Kara had seen out there, it’s something that even **_Supergirl fears._ **

Space is cold. The light of the sun is fading away, it’s so much dimmer compared to how bright it has been on Earth. She scours the darkness with her enhanced visual capabilities, and it’s enough for her to spot the approaching comet. Kara shields her eyes away from the harsh, incoming light.

It’s so **_bright_ ** **.**

The coma is glowing, and it’s hard to see where the nucleus is so she could shoot at it with a laser beam. It’s hard to even shoot at a moving target anyway, and she needs to find a place where she can shoot it and not miss.

“Kara? Kara? Are you there?” Lena’s voice filters through the otherwise desolate space.

“Y-yes, Lena. I’m here,” she tells Lena. Her friend’s voice grounds her. “I found the comet. It’s...it’s massive. You were right, Lena. It’s so big and even if its core misses Earth, the coma would be enough to rip the planet apart.”

“What are you planning to do?” Lena asks.

Kara flies close to the comet. She could see its core. It’s small and white, almost hard to target because it’s spinning in a very, very erratic way. Still, she thinks she can pull it off. “I’ll try and shoot a laser beam to take it out.”

Bracing herself, the comet passes by her and she moves to hit the comet’s core. Gathering energy into her eyes, she imagines a large burst of fire coming out of her. She closes her eyes, trying to center herself and trusting on her intuition to hit the comet. When she opens them, she doesn’t see. Instead, she feels power.

From a very short burst, she closes her eyes again. When she opens them again, she sees that the comet had been hit, but it had barely budged from its course nor showed any signs of effect from her laser beam.

_It’s then that Kara truly starts to panic._

She flies faster than she had ever done before as she tries to gain some distance against the comet. They pass by Saturn. The comet is not letting up, nor is it slowing down. Kara tries to shoot another laser beam, and it gets hit, but nothing happens.

She pauses, hovering in the air. “Lena,” she says to the CommLink device in her ear. “Lena, I can’t destroy the comet with my laser beam, I...I don’t know what to do. I need to throw off its trajectory so that it can’t hit Earth. Or...or I must face it head-on.”

“Oh hell, you will not be facing this one head-on!”

“Alex?” Kara falters. “Alex, what are you doing there? Are you...are you with Lena?”

“You sure do know how to stir things around, Kara. I had to go and get Lena so she would tell me what you’re up to. What are you thinking?” Alex hisses. “Lena’s told me that your chances are slim, and yet you still go on trying to save everyone. What are you thinking? There could be another way to deal with this!”

Kara stops. “There is no other way! All I know is I have to save Earth,” she finally says. She watches as the comet sails past Jupiter. “I have to go. I need to stop this comet from reaching Earth. There is no other way,” she says as she propels herself forward.

She whizzes by various-sized asteroids, and Earth is already in sight. Bracing herself, she wills to fly the fastest she has ever done her entire life. As she heads straight to Earth’s orbit, she could feel the glaring energy coming off in waves from the comet. Its energy is thrumming.

She gains on the comet just as it whizzes past Mars. Quickly gaining speed, Kara manages to enter the Earth’s atmosphere first. The comet is falling not far behind. Once she’s back to the surface, Kara could see the glaring energy coming from the approaching comet. It’s so bright that it almost looks like the Earth had grown a second sun.

But she doesn’t have time to stare up at the sky. She propels herself up, pushing against the ground with all her might as she faces the incoming onslaught. Gritting her teeth, she bends her body forwards, palms extended out.

She holds her breath as she tries to squint through the glare coming from the incoming comet.

“Kara...Kara what the hell are you doing?!” Lena screams into the CommLink. “You can’t do that! You’ll die from the impact if you try to take on that comet!”

A small smile escapes her lips. She’ll protect Earth or she’ll die trying. She’s lost her homeworld before, and she’s not going to lose another one. Kara closes her eyes, and she imagines all of their faces -- her friends, Eliza and Alex, and Lena.

_Her Lena._

Maybe the entire National City is looking at their screens today with bated breath, just like her.

“What is Supergirl if she can’t save Earth?” she asks Lena. On the other end of the line, she could faintly hear Lena sniffle a sob. Kara could feel her heart twist in such an ugly manner. “I’ll protect you, all of you. It’s that or I’ll die trying.”

“But Kara...”

“It’s alright,” Kara tells her. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

“I’m...I’m afraid, Kara.”

Kara could feel something hot and wet running down her cheek. She knows the feeling of loss and sadness and helplessness. It’s seeping through Lena’s voice. She feels it seeping through her ears and into her bones. 

**_She could feel Lena’s fear as if it were her own._ **

She’s back at the sub-orbital level again, and she propels forward. The comet had already outshone the moon, and Kara squinted at the scalding heat emanating from the comet as she came closer and closer to the colossal celestial body. Bracing herself, she feels the first onslaught of force winds pushing against her body, and she falters a little.

Grinding her teeth together, she tells herself the entire existence of Earth depends on this.

“Kara! What are you doing?” Lena’s voice travels over the crackle of the static. “If the force of the coma will not kill you, the impact when you try to collide with the comet’s core will! Kara please don’t...don’t leave me.”

“I...” Kara struggles to speak. The force winds are pushing her back the closer she is from the core of the comet. It’s pushing so hard that her teeth feel like they’re going to fall off by the way her entire body is rattling. 

“I...there is no other way...Lena...I must...save...”

Kara closes her eyes. The light is blinding and she could feel the burn seeping through her Kryptonian skin before it suddenly fades. She closes her hands into a tight fist, balling themselves as forcefully as possible and putting all her strength forward.

The comet’s core glimmers through the light and something catches her eyes but it disappears in a split second. Kara dives in for the kill.

**_When she makes it to the surface and deals with the impact, Supergirl doesn’t feel anything._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thank you for getting here! It's been quite a ride. Hope you stay for more!
> 
> How did this chapter go? Yay or nay? Let me know in the comments! Find me in the bird app @artisturtle for updates.


	3. The Weight of Free-Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here's another chapter for this piece. There's no summary really. I hope you like this. It's fairly shorter than the first two chapters. In fact, from here on out, the chapters will be shorter (but I am not compromising the storyline despite the shortness of the chapters). Don't forget to leave a comment on how this made you feel! 
> 
> Have a good read ahead!

It’s oddly quiet.

Lena stands there, in the middle of her laboratory, her feet rooted to the floor. Her eyes are wide as she watches the blank white screen. One of the L-Corp satellites managed to take footage of Supergirl whizzing by before the comet had exploded.

“K-Ka...Kara,” Alex mumbles as the DEO agent’s legs give way and she falls to the floor.

The clatter is enough for Lena’s consciousness to spring into action. She gathers Alex from the floor and leads her to one of the seats in the corner. Once done, she tries to retrieve any information about the incident. She punches several keys on the board all at once, sending out commands through supercomputers, pulling out any satellite imagery available.

“Kara? Kara are you there?” Lena almost growls into the CommLink, all the while trying to search for clues and traces if Supergirl has survived the collision. “Kara can you hear me?” she asks.

_ Silence. _

“Kara must have made an impact on the comet’s core,” she mumbles more to herself because Alex is still shell-shocked. It had all happened so fast, but she can’t break now.

There are voices in the hallway. Eve, her assistant, finally appears with Reiff and the other DEO agents behind them. They wear different sorts of expressions: confusion, worry, and most of them -- fear. Reiff rushes to Alex's side.

“She’s still in shock,” Lena says to Reiff as she keeps her eyes on the computers. Most of the L-Corp satellites have gone offline due to the impact, but she doesn’t worry about that now. What she worries about is Kara.

Pulling up whatever she could, Lena finally manages to find a working satellite after a few minutes of running through resources. Sending its beam into the direction of the supposed impact area, she sees so much debris. A lot of them are falling back to the earth’s surface.

“Come on, where the hell are you, Kara?” eyes flitting from one side of the screen to another. “Where the he--”

A beeping sound fills the air, followed by the crackle of static. Lena turns to Reiff, who’s just about to take an alarm call from standard-issued DEO communication devices. Reiff turns the communicator on.

“Comet debris headed for Earth,” the other DEO agent yells on the other side of the line. “We’re not sure and it’s still a few miles above the upper ionosphere, but we believe Supergirl’s with them, as per our surveillance.”

There’s a crackle before the man on the other line speaks again. 

“She’s free-falling to Earth.”

It’s enough for Alex to come to her senses, and while she’s still in a state of shock, she’s up on her feet and addressing Reiff to send out teams of DEO operatives to fetch Kara up from space. Her eyes are glassy, and her movements uncoordinated.

Realizing that Alex is not in the right mindset to handle situations at the moment, Lena decides to step in. Jumping to her feet, she rushes to the other side of her lab, towards the vault that contained most of her prized prototypes and projects. Her eyes finally zero in on one of her more recent projects. The unearthly blue-and-white glow of the vault lamps illuminates the entire room, providing little luminance to the small space.

She almost laughs to herself at the irony, that this project is meant for the  **_opposite of saving Supergirl._ **

“What are you doing?” Alex harshly questions her as she steps into the threshold of the vault room. “I am still holding you under custody.”

“I’m doing what I can,” Lena replies. “How long will it take for you to mobilize your fellow DEO agents? Ten, twenty minutes? By the time that’ll happen, Kara’s terminal velocity will be so fast you wouldn’t be able to stop her. Nothing will ever be able to stop her.”

“What are these?” Alex eyes the row of suits lined up on one side of the wall. “Don’t tell me...don’t tell me you’ve been doing all of this in here. I will be bringing you into questioning for this alone.”

Lena sighs. “I’ve been developing protective suits for soldiers in battle,” she says curtly. “That’s all there is to it. In case you’ve forgotten, L-Corp is a technological entity. Last time I checked, it still is.”

Alex harshly grips Lena's hand. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Every second we stay here bickering like children is another second of Kara’s chances of surviving closer to zero," Lena growls. "So let me the fuck go because that's your sister I'm going to save."

The admission alone is enough to make Alex falter, and once her grip loosens, Lena harshly pulls her hand away from Alex’s grip.

"Hope, initiate Project Luthor," Lena commands, and a strange material like liquified metal blooms from her chest. It spreads throughout her torso. The metal starts to take on the form of an outer body covering, hardening, and setting in the process.

"Wh-what is this?" Alex stutters as she watches Lena's body being covered by the material.

"Nanotechnology and a metal called vibranium. I have incorporated Hope with it," Lena simply says before turning on her heel, starting to leave the room. "You know, the DEO is not the only one with tricks up their sleeves," she says before exiting the room.

Alex stands still for a few seconds.  _ Luthor has unimaginable power at her disposal. How had she gotten her hands on those things? _

"Luthor is seen outside the building, should we take her out?" a DEO agent radios into her communicator. "We are on standby and awaiting orders."

It's enough to set Alex moving. "No," she says back to the communicator. "Let her be. We have bigger concerns as of the moment."

Alex runs past the lab and out into the balcony, just in time for her to see Lena's dark armor speeding up to the skies in a dark flash. Up ahead, Alex could see the writhing, glaring mass of white light glowing like a blemish in the otherwise blue sky. Taking one of the standard-issue telescopes from Reiff, Alex peers through them and watches in horror as a speck of black falls from clouds.

“Kara,” she murmurs, and her heart stops a beat as she realizes Supergirl is falling to the ground.

**_And she’s falling really fast._ **

Lena shoots through a dense layer of clouds. She could feel the abrupt drop in temperature as she flew to the other side of it. Turning around, she tries to see through the thick vapor, looking for signs of Supergirl.

_ Had Kara fallen so fast that she had missed her? _

“Damn,” she mutters as she dives back through the thick blanket of vapor. She emerges to the brighter side of it below, and her heart stops because it’s just in time to see the unconscious Supergirl shooting by.

“Oh God, Kara...no,” she mutters at the sheer speed of the unconscious superhero falling below her. “Initiate maximum speed protocol,” Lena says and she goes faster, tearing through the skies.

“Warning, terminal velocity at fatal conditions,” Hope’s monotone voice flutters within the space of her small helmet. “Initiating safety protocol. Decreasing terminal velocity now.”

“Override,” Lena mutters quickly.

“Overriding the protocol can have fatal consequences. Impact at the surface may cause destruction of the nanotech suit and may cause irreparable damage to your biological faculties and may result in your death, Miss Luthor,” Hope says. It is odd, that this artificial intelligence program she had created is talking about her death in such a disembodied manner.

_ But she can’t allow herself not to save Kara _ .

“Override!” Lena says harshly. Supergirl's body is in sight. “Override and initiate maximum speed protocol!”

A moment passes and the disembodied voice of her AI is back. "Overriding safety protocol. Switching to manual and initiating maximum speed protocol."

Lena closes her eyes, feeling the sonic boom flood through her as she goes faster than the speed of sound. She zips by as she feels the wind rushing through her. She's going faster, faster than she has ever gone before.

But they're closer to the ground as well.

**"WARNING, SURFACE IMPACT IN FIFTEEN SECONDS! INITIATE SAFETY PROTOCOL NOW!"**

It barely registers to her that the countdown on her visor had started. What only matters to her is that she's close to Kara. Lena exhales a breath when her hands feel the rough-hewn exterior of Supergirl's suit. She turns her around, but Supergirl twists around like a ragdoll in her arms.

"Kara, wake up!" Lena says as she lifts her visor. Her eyes widen when she realizes that the superhero is knocked out. "Hope, scan for vital signs."

"Scanning subject," Hope pauses for a while. Lena stares at the phantom countdown on her visor, watching as the 9 switches down to 8.

"Subject is undergoing respiratory dysfunction. Potential respiratory arrest. Activate medical emergency protocol," Hope drones, and Lena feels her world stop.

“Oh no, Kara, please...please…"

**"WARNING, SURFACE IMPACT IN FIVE SECONDS! INITIATE SAFETY PROTOCOL NOW!"**

Lena sucks in a breath as she finally sees the grassy ground below her. Wrapping her arms around Kara's unconscious body, she offers measly protection from the fall -- but protection nonetheless. Then, she aims her thrusters at an angle perpendicular to the ground.

"Fire thrusters at full force," Lena commands.

"Fire thrusters are now working at full capacity," Hope replies as Lena feels the upward force cushioning their fall.

Lena momentarily sees the sky above her. It's bright, despite her having to see it through her scratched and ruined nanotech visor. A sliver of sunlight pours through her, and she realizes that maybe she is finally at peace.

She squeezes the cold hand she's holding, and it's the last feeling she feels before the world disappears from her eyes.

Lena blinks, once and then twice. Something warm trickles on the side of her face. It’s so clear up, and she realizes her visor had broken. Taking the rest of the helmet and visor off, she runs a shaky hand through her face and when she looks back, she realizes it's blood. The red liquid tinges brightly against the harsh sun.

"Kara!" she gasps, managing to stand on her feet as she tries to ignore the pain all over her body. The world around her swims in curvature, as though she is having a bad bout of vertigo. "Kara, wake up!"

She falls on her knees, and it sends her teeth rattling. She manages to get to the fallen superhero, who is a few feet away from her. Gingerly, Lena grabs Kara's lifeless hand into hers, cradling them close to her chest.

"Kara," she feels the hot tears welling up through the surface. Kara looks so...small and broken.

Something trickles at the side of Kara's face -- blood. From Kara's lips, the bright red liquid marches out, as though they are soldiers marching out to war. Lena gasps when she sees the liquid slowly pooling out.

_ Kryptonians had such bright-red blood. _

"Hope, initiate medical scanning!" Lena says, panic creeping through her voice.

"Initiating medical scan," Hope's disembodied voice says. "Subject is unresponsive, voluntary respiration, not present, heart rate at forty beats per minute and slowing down, blood pressure is still abnormally low, blood loss is evident."

"Help! Someone, help us!" Lena screams, the hot tears now flowing freely against her cheeks. "Help!"

She tries to stand and carry Kara in her arms. When she does, a white-hot pain sears her side and she is forced to keel over.

"You have a bruised arm and a fracture on the lower left of your ribcage," Hope tells her. "It would be wise if you stay down and not move so much while help is on the way, Miss Luthor."

"No, I ha-have to g-get h-help...Ka...ra," Lena whispers as her vision goes blurry again. It's getting hard to breathe, as though she's drowning.

"Wh-what's happening?" Lena coughs out on her palm. When she sees it, she realizes it's red and coppery. Suddenly, it’s getting so hard to breathe. "Hope...scan…"

"Your left lung has just undergone pneumothorax. You might have possibly punctured your lungs. Oxygen-assisted breathing will be initiated immediately. Miss Luthor, please remain calm while help is on the way," Hope says in her disembodied and emotionless voice.

"B-but…Kar-ra...sh-she…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I know, I know -- it's fairly short. Sorry for this. Tell me what you think?
> 
> Also, follow me @artisturtle on Twitter! xx


	4. Once More, Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! How's everyone doing today! Here's another update for this piece! I hope you enjoy it!

It’s bright, so bright.

Lena blinks the brightness away. She’s in a white room, with white walls and white curtains and a white bed with white sheets. Her brows furrow. It isn’t her room. The smell of antiseptic and chlorine bleach hangs heavy in the air. It’s as though she’s stuck in one large laundromat. Why is she in a place that is not hers?

_ Kara. _

She desperately turns her head around, and she sees Alex leaning on the wall opposite her bedside, still in her standard-issue DEO suit.

"Lena," Alex says, lifting her body from where it leans on the wall. "You're awake."

"I am," she mutters. "Am I at the DEO?"

"You're lucky you're smart," she tells Lena, ignoring the question. "Slowing down your terminal velocity by aiming your thrusters to the ground saved you. If you hadn't done it, you would've been in a morgue rather than on a DEO infirmary bed by now."

"Where's Kara?" she asks. "I need to see her."

Alex and her stone-faced façade slightly crumble. "Well," she starts and her gaze softens at Lena. "She's...she's somewhere here."

Grabbing her hand, Alex lets Lena sit on a nearby wheelchair before pushing her out of the room. Their journey through the hallway is quiet, only punctuated by the noisy creak of the wheels of her wheelchair.

"She hasn't woken up," Alex tells her. "But you can stay with her if you want," she says as she opens a door.

Lena stares at Kara's sleeping body. She looks so frail and small. "It must have taken everything in her to take out that comet."

"Yeah, it must have."

They exchange no words after that. Both women stay hovering beside Kara's bed, watching her intently. It's been a good five minutes before Alex clears her throat.

"You know, I never really thanked you, Lena."

"Huh?"

Alex turns to face her. "Thank you for saving Supergirl. Thank you for saving my sister," she says before turning on her heel and exiting the room, leaving Lena in the silence as she watched Kara’s pale face buried underneath white sheets.

It’s not until hours later when someone breaks the silence.

"Miss Luthor," a young man calls Lena by the doorway of Kara's room. He dresses smartly in the standard DEO agent field uniform, sans the standard issue of DEO weapons. Lena quirks a brow, and the young man averts his eye

"I was ordered to bring you food but you weren't in your designated room. I thought I’d find you here,” he says and he sets the tray of food on the small table next to Kara’s bed. “Is there anything else you might need, Miss Luthor?”

Lena shakes her head curtly. “No. You can leave once you’re done here.”

The young man seems put off. “Alright,” he finally says before he turns his heel to walk away.

As his footsteps recede, Lena gazes at Kara’s face. She doesn’t bear the hurt she had sustained before, and she’s breathing evenly. Stuck on a bed, Kara doesn’t look so much like the superhero that saved the world.

_ What is Supergirl if she cannot save the world?  _ There’s nothing but the quiet haunting of the halls that answer her.

“What if it’s Supergirl that needs saving?” she whispers wryly to herself. Kara’s eyes remain closed and her breathing steady. Lena squeezes Kara’s hands, slowly bringing them to her lips and she gently kisses the insides of Kara’s wrist. 

“Forgive me, Kara. Forgive me for not seeing it all soon enough,” she whispers brokenly, her eyes filled with hot tears. Regret courses through her like an incoming wave. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she sobs brokenly, her cries echoing against the bare wall.

It’s dark. Kara squints her eyes as she tries to see through the hazy grogginess. She tries to move her head, and she barely manages to lift it from the pillow. Turning on her side, she catches sight of a mop of dark, black hair at the side of her bed.

“L-Lena?” she croaks out, her voice scratchy and thick. “Hey, Lena.”

Lena lifts her head, and Kara sees the small quiver on her lips. Lena’s eyes mist over, and for a second, she’s confused why Lena’s with her in the first place. The last thing she remembers is the searing brightness and the white-hot light that had hit her full-force.

“Kara,” Lena whispers, pulling her out of her thoughts. “You’re up,” she says.

Kara smiles a little. She takes note of the perplexed look on Lena’s face. It looks as though she’d been crying, judging from the tear tracks on her cheeks. Had Lena been here for long? Was she worried?

“Hey, is everything okay?” Kara asks worriedly, and she doesn’t receive an answer from the dark-haired girl, but she feels Lena’s arms around her body and she could feel Lena’s hot breath on the side of her neck as she burrows impossibly closer to Kara’s body.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Lena whispers. “I thought...I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Silly,” she loosens herself from her hold against Lena and she gives her a weak smile. “Look, I’m still here. See?” she makes a little flourish with her hand as if to emphasize that she’s sitting in front of Lena. 

“No, you misunderstand me, Kara.”

“What?” Kara’s brows furrowed in confusion when she sees Lena shaking her head wildly. “What are you talking about?”

Lena sighs, and she moves to sit next to Kara on the bed. She keeps her hands clasped around Kara’s, and even though they are trembling, she doesn’t let go. “I want to tell you something. Will you promise to listen to everything I want to say?”

Kara nods reassuringly. “I promise.”

Lena sighs again, as though she’s trying to get her courage together. “Okay,” she says. “I’ve...I’ve never been totally honest with you, Kara. I’ve been hurt by people. You understand that I have been betrayed by so many before, and you keeping secrets from me have wounded me, so much. You must understand that I have been through so much pain and I have been making decisions under the influence of such strong emotions.”

Kara nods her head.

“That hurt took me to a very dark path, Kara. I was so consumed by my anger and hurt and resentment, that I’ve tried so hard to take revenge on you. I only wanted to be your friend because I intended to betray your trust,” Lena shrinks to herself, and she had pulled her hands away from Kara’s grasp.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, Kara. I didn’t know the gravity of what I was doing,” Lena says, wrapping her arms around her own body. Her shoulders shake violently, as sobs rack through her body angrily.

“Lena...Lena,” Kara coos, gathering Lena into her arms. “Look at me. Listen, listen. I understand where you are coming from, okay?” Kara tells her, gripping tightly at Lena’s arms as she tries to comfort her friend.

“I understand,” Kara says.

“No,” Lena says harshly, pushing herself away from Kara and off of the bed. “I’ve thought about trying to kill you, hurting you, destroying you! Do you have any idea of what I’ve done, I’ve been trying to do the whole time I pretended we’re friends?”

Kara tries to reach out to Lena. Pulling her friend back to the bed, Kara wipes away the tears that now flow freely from Lena’s eyes. “Lena, listen to me. I promised I’d listen to you, now I ask you to listen to me, okay? Lena, listen...listen to me.”

For a moment, Lena shudders, until she lets out a calming exhale. “Okay,” she whispers.

“Look, I understand. I understand what you mean. It hurts that you think of me that way, that you wish me harm. And I should be angry at you by now, for trying to fool me and betray me,” Kara says as she gives Lena’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “But you are here now, telling me all this. I think that’s got to count for something. This is you trying to get off that dark path.”

“I was hurt too, Lena. But I’ve forgiven you. Shouldn’t we forgive the ones we love?” Kara says as she lifts Lena’s chin so they could look into each other’s eyes. “I hope from this moment on, you can start forgiving yourself, too. Will you promise me that you’d try, at least?”

Lena nods, and they finally fall back into each other’s embrace. Softly, gently, like two halves of a whole, Lena melts into Kara. It’s quiet, their breathing only punctuating the stifling silence of the room they are in.

“Lena,” Kara says after some time. “I never really got to thank you for saving Supergirl.”

“I...” Lena stutters, fumbling for words to say. She sheepishly smiles at Kara.  _ Of course, she’d always try to save Supergirl. On any day, any time. She’d always try to save Kara because Kara means the world to her. _

“Just don’t go running off to trouble like that again,” she finally settles to say. “Who knows, it might just be a one-time thing?”

“Yeah, I guess I should listen to you more, huh?”

Lena lets out a small laugh. “The comet slugged you off real good. It’s never happened that Supergirl landed on an infirmary bed. You sure did scare a lot of us down here.”

Kara shrugs. “To be honest, I thought I could take it head-on. I didn’t know it could have so much power and force. It felt like I rammed into a star instead of a speeding rock,” she says thoughtfully. “Did the DEO ever retrieve what’s left of its core? It might hold important information.”

Lena shrugs. “I don’t know, really. Maybe we should ask Alex about it.”

“Oh, Alex! Yeah, now that you’ve mentioned it, I remember. What was she doing with you back then?” Kara asks. “I mean, not that I’m being nosy and all, but why was she in your laboratory.”

“Well, your sister tried to arrest me,” Lena replies nonchalantly.

“What? Why...why would she do that? What for?”

Lena leans back on the bed, trying to make herself comfortable. “Well, she said it was obstruction of justice and for hacking into NASA. I don’t really see anything wrong with telling her anything since we didn’t even know what we were getting ourselves into.”

“Will you be in trouble? What about Winn?”

Lena smiles as she starts to languidly play with the tips of Kara’s hair. “I don’t think she’d follow through with her threat,” she says. “Besides, you did save the Earth once more so I don’t think that it matters much at this time. Winn is included in the equation, though he did not escape a scathing telling off from Hank and some talk of being reassigned somewhere else.”

“Oh...that’s terrible,” Kara says. “I...I feel bad for Winn, and I feel bad for...for you. What will happen now? Will there be an arraign--”

“Oh shut it, you don’t have to wo--”

“Back from the dead so soon?” Winn’s voice booms from the doorway, a wide grin on his face as he takes in the sight of Lena and Kara sharing the same bed. “Both of you kissed and made up already?”

Lena blushes hotly, and Kara feels like she’s going to combust at any moment.

“We...we’re not...” Kara stutters. “We haven’t…”

Winn just lets out a booming laugh, his peals of laughter echoing against the walls as he takes in the sight of a flustered Kara who is red in the face. Alex walks past him, punching him lightly on the chest, but he’s still smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the update! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you are enjoying this, and please leave me a comment if you really like this! Pleek?


End file.
